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FRANCE, THE FRANCE I LOVE 



riY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 

FRANCE, THE FRANCE I LOVE 

By DU BOIS HribuX, Ph. D. 

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY DR. FRANK CRANE 
MAPS BY TOWNSEND MAC COUN, A. M. 



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English, French and Italian Texts 






PAULINE L. DIVER 

PUBLISHER 

NEW YORK, U. S. A. 







r 



Copyright, 1918. 

PAULINE L. DIVER 

First impression, five thousand, 

September, 1918. 

International Copyrights reserved. 



OCT 31 I9i8 
©CU506404 



OH FRANCE TO THEE THE PUBLISHER THE 
AUTHOR AND THE CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS 
BOOK HEREWITH INSCRIBE THEIR AFFEC 
TIONATE DEVOTION TO THY CAUSE WHICH 
IS OUR CAUSE THE CAUSE OF LIBERTY AND 
HUMANITY IN THE EARTH THE CAUSE FOR 
WHICH OUR COMMON FATHERS FOUGHT 
AND FOR WHICH OUR FATHERS BROTHERS 
DAUGHTERS AND SONS NOW FIGHT IN COM 
MON TO THE END THAT THE WILL OF GOD 
MAY BE DONE ON EARTH AS IT IS IN THAT 
PART OF THE UNIVERSE TO WHICH WE AIRE 
WENDING AND WHICH WE CALL HEAVEN 



CONTENTS 

INTRODUCTION 

PAGE 

Publisher's Preface, Pauline L. Diver v 

The Significance of France, Dr. Frank Crane xi 

Author's Preface, Du Bois Loux, Ph.D xiii 

Maps, by Townsend MacCoun, A.M xvii 

"MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE" 

BY DU BOIS H. LOUX 

I— The Vallley of the Makers-of-Liberty 

Sentiment : 

The Yankees, who Saint Mihiel choose, 
Reclaim, with France, her far-famed Meuse. 
From the Yankees at St. Mihiel to Joan of Arc in 
Domremy-la-Pucelle. 

II — American Crusaders of Liberty 13 

Sentiment : 

The Foe, in France, in seeking strife, 
Strikes at the roots of human life. 
Address of President Wilson to Congress. 
American heroism : The Service Cross in Belleau Wood. 

Ill — Early Struggle for Freedom in France 16 

Sentiment : 

Cities whose freedom dearly was bought, 
In the Foe's clutches still are caught. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

IV — Defending the "Motherly Land" 18 

Sentiment : 

All are defending the "Motherly Land/^ — 
Inspiring 'tis, magnificent, grand ! 

V — How Long the Struggle ? 19 

Sentiment : 

"It won't be long, but as long as needs be;" 
"Well do this work well,r the soldiers agree. 

VI— La Marseillaise 20 

Sentiment : 

Oh victory song, oh song of songs ! 
Oh song that in my soul belongs! 

VII — The Contribution of France to Civilization 26 

Sentiment : 

Come hear Guizot, and know the story, 

Of which La Marseillaise is the resonant glory. 

VIII— The French Revolution 33 

Sentiment : 

The story of La Marseillaise is bloody, 
But just the blood is not the study. 

IX — The Volcano Awaits Napoleon 35 

Sentiment : 

Lachambeaudie's Cynic and Optimist. 

X — The Genius of Napoleon: His Maxims of War 40 

Sentiment : 

This Napoleon's glory proves — 
"Quick as my thoughts my moves!'* 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

XI— The Soldier's Discipline , . . . . 45 

Sentiment : 

'Tis discipline, writes Bonaparte, 

On which the General grounds his art. 

XII — Napoleon's Greatness in His Fall 52 

Sentiment : 

And when he is fallen low, 

Out of his words better empires grow. 

XIII— The Miracle 54 

Sentiment : 

The world the greatness of her soul surprises: 
Her heroes fall ? — France rises ! 

XIV — The Place of France in Science, Literature and Art.. 56 
To France we come, without a doubt, 
To light the fires that ne'er will out. 

XV — Whence the Supersense of Place Possessed of France? 66 
Sentiment : 

There is, in France, a supersense of place : — 
Whence? — "whence but of the Gospel's grace?" 

XVI — The Supreme Sacrifice 75 

Sentiment : 

"I swear," he said, "most happy I 
To die, my France to glorify." 

XVII-The Religion of Work 81 

Sentiment : 

Once more, what is work? — answer well. 
And I, what the faith of France is, will tell. 



MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS 

I — MAPS. 

PAGE 

Physical Map of France xvii 

Basins of Rivers xviii 

Celtic Gaul xix 

Growth of France — Original Domain xx 

France, 1000 A. D xxi 

France, 1180, A. D xxii 

Gothic Gaul xxiii 

Europe in 1812 xxi v 

II — ILLUSTRATIONS 

Joan of Arc, by Smeeton et Tilly ., 3 

Joan of Arc, by Eyles 5 

Joan of Arc, by Staal 9 

Statue of Liberty, illumined at night, N. Y. World 11 

Portrait of Lafayette, 25 

Napoleon Bonaparte, by Jean Baptiste 37 

Napoleon Bonaparte, Versailles portrait 51 

Beauvais Cathedral, by Rouargue Freres 65 

Joan of Arc 69 

Old Print, Pyrenees 73 

Joan of Arc, by Jacques Wagrez 77 

Villeneuve , 78 

Amiens Cathedral 83 

in — SONG. 

La Marseillaise 21-23 



PUBLISHER'S PREFACE 

As My Tribute to France goes forth dressed in the 
tricolor splendor we honor and love, a copy brightens 
my desk with its fair mingled radiance of red, white and 
blue. Oh, boys and girls of France, and our own Amer- 
ican lads and lassies at the front, too ! may the passion 
of France for that which is noble and enduring be 
fulfilled in your lives. As you are marching on to 
victory, may the strength and the beauty unfolded in the 
pages within rest with its charm on you and yours. 

Just to record rhy appreciation of its "mob" spirit, let 
me here put in a letter that came to me about the book 
before it reached its cover. 

Miss Pauline L. Diver, 
The Martinique, 
New York. 

Dear "Major P. L. D. :" 

You've got to listen to this — your book is immense! 
It's the finest little thing from cover to cover that ever 
was! The one best bet— just like the "Major P. L. D. !" 
You'll never escape the boys' letters now. It's a private 
secretary for YOU! How could you do it? It's like you 



from end to end — ^but how? Why, "Major," there's a 
thousand histories, philosophies and novels packed all in 
one in your pages. How you have divined the Genius of 
France! The "Blue Devils" will simply "fall for you" 
after this. They'll know you are sincere. They'll see 
that you understand the heart of La France. Your book 
touches a city — it appears before one in a line, with its 
thousand years of struggle for liberty. Your book takes 
one to the battle-line — by the memories of the Maid of 
Orleans, how the scene is portrayed and understood! 
Your book outlines the literature of France — we see at 
once its genius, its secrets, its passion. Your book — ■ 
and you let me read only the manuscript and see the 
cover in the "dummy" — is at once the most generous 
and the daintiest, the simplest and the grandest, the most 
easy to read and the most profound, of any of the books 
I know about. You've plunged right in, in the book, and 
have held your sword in hand, as Victor Hugo says 
Napoleon held his cannon in his hand — ready to break 
the way for victory, now on this side and now on that! 
You are a regular Joan of Arc, a la America, "Major 
P. D. !" I mean it. The boys will know it. Every fellow 
v/ill be wanting to get a copy home to his sister or sweet- 
heart, before Thanksgiving. Every girl will be wanting 
to get a copy over to the Front in France before Hallow 
E'en. Glad that the book is to be printed in French and 
Italian too ! The soldier boys over there who "parley 
France" and worship Garibaldi will be tickled to death 



vt. 



with what the book says of them. You surely do tell 
them what you think of them. They'll never forget you 
for it. You'll be dubbed Generalisimo Pauline by them ! 
Make up your mind to it. Don't run off and hide your- 
self. You have thought a thing and done it. You can't 
climb out of history now. You are part of the War ! 
They will carry you on their shoulders and mob you, if 
vou set foot on their soil. You have comprehended their 
history, their genius, their patience, their resolve ! You 
have painted their affection, their devotion to liberty, 
their courage, their sacrifice ! You have laid bare to the 
world the why of the war they are fighting! You have 
taken all peoples into the sacredness of their cause ! You 
have showed that you are a soldier by nature, though 
a girl by fate ! You have won ! Now don't get discouraged 
about it. You've got to live through your destiny. You 
were born to seize the flag and lead victory on ! You are 
the personification of your song, The World is Marching 
on to Victory! The American boys and girls will love 
you too! You have told them things in your book that 
make the heart leap ! Every one will want to carry the 
book with him when he goes to France, now and after 
the war, in the days of reclamation. Every one will 
want to read the books from which you seize a thunder- 
bolt here, a flash from the sky there, and everywhere the 
sunshine of hope and high ambition. I don't find any 
preachments in your book, "Major," — it's too much of a 
soldier's book, busy with achievements-at-arms for that 



Z/M. 



— 'but, my, you make the heart beat fast at times! And 
then how soon we are smiHng aloud again! 

Go, Httle book, Hke "our Major," to gladden every 
place you touch. Rest on every table in France, in Eng- 
land, in Italy, in America ! When you are opened, let no 
one interrupt the reader you fascinate, till he has poured 
himself into the contents to your inspiring end. 

P. S. — Now pray excuse the seeming lightness of my 
vein. I am singularly attracted to your book. Its splen- 
did philosophy affects one like champagne. You will dis- 
cover this effect in many of your friends, I think. The 
skeptical and weary should come to it to find an elixir 
of soul. It should be a sure cure for depressed spirits 
everywhere. It explains the why of the war in the 
simplest, most intimate terms. Thank you again for 
giving the book to the world. 

Irvin G. Herman, 

Attorney-at-Law, 

New York, 14th September, year 1918; Pershing 
smashing St. Mihiel. 



THANK YOU ! 

The work is published in French. May it be found in all 
schools, all hbraries, all homes of France! It will 
remind you of the love that was born for you, when I 



could not come to your shores, and so longed to send 
this book as my substitute. An American girl's heart 
goes with the book. I love you, France, for your long- 
suffering and valor; for your diligence and science; for 
your literature and art; for your churches and monu- 
ments ; for your patriotism and humanity. 

I wanted our American youth to have the story of 
your humanity, with its marvelous revealings. I wanted 
them to know the fundamental chords of the symphony 
of Liberty that you have created in the passion of your 
soul. 

And now I shall never be able to express my gratitude 
to my author, Dr. Du Bois Loux, out of whose scholar- 
ship and rare literary ability, the philosophy, the history, 
the poetry, the political genius of France has found such 
exquisite expression.. You will admit with me, I think, 
that what we have always had in our hearts to say, runs 
to meet us, in his words. It is part of Dr. Loux'? 
singular ability, to be able to write as he talks 
— with the charm as of an intimate friend. But I shall 
not anticipate the pleasure that lies before you, as 
you take up his story. This is just to say, that the 
moment I read his words, I knew that they sounded 
like my own thoughts for you, and I was glad. That 
gladness will now flow to you. 

I am grateful, too, to Dr. Frank Crane for his 
Eulogy, which introduces Dr. Loux's story; and to 
Mr. Townsend MacCoun for his beautiful maps, whose 



colors once again illustrate the exquisite splendor that 
falls on our souls as the places they represent through 
the thousand years of the struggle of France for her 
liberties, are identified and interpreted in a line by 
Dr. Loux. 

There is an Italian version of the book too — that 
they may know what we think of you in Florence, 
Venice, Naples and Rome. 

May you have as much pleasure as I in the book, 
and may no dream be too good to come true to France ! 

Publisher. 
New York, September 19, 1918. 



THE SIGNIFICANCE OF FRANCE 

By Dr. Frank Crane. 

France is perhaps the most significant nation in the 
world. 

We little realize her tremendous meaning in history. 

She is the center of Democracy in Europe. 

Right in the nest of kings, right amidst the toughest 
and bloodiest traditions of Autocracy, she has stood 
erect for over a hundred years, proclaiming the inalien- 
able rights of man. It was in keeping with the fitness of 
things that Germany should attack her, for she stands 
for everything that Germany would trample under feet. 
Hers are the highest ideals of honor, the keenest sense 
of sportsmanship, the finest qualities of mercy and 
gentleness and all the things that lend brilliancy and 
dignity to the human soul. 

Superficial observers before this war thought that she 
was going down the purple paths of dalliance to disin- 
tegration. They little knew the depths of her resources. 
She has rallied magnificiently. 

She flew at the throat of the attacking Prussian wolf 
with all the heedless courage of a thoroughbred hound. 
Hers will always be the central position in this great war. 



The other nations of the world are glad and proud to be 
her allies. 

Every man has two countries: his own and France. 

From now on forever the plains of Picardy will be 
the high point of the world's pilgrimage, and unborn 
generations shall visit there and tell to one another the 
glorious deeds of France, and of how the whole world 
rushed to her defense. 

Our feeling toward France is more than appreciation, 
more than admiration : it is an abiding passion. 



XVI. 



AUTHOR'S PREFACE 

The present volume by no means exhausts the purpose 
of Pauline L. Diver concerning France. It is the first 
of a series of companion volumes, each of which is 
designed to be a unique memoir of her affection for the 
French people. The series will be printed in the Eng- 
lish, French and Italian languages. 

The second volume of this series is now in prepara- 
tion. A number of beautifully colored maps, each map 
the last word of the House of Poates, map-engravers, 
and of Townsend MacCoun's art, as a map-designer, 
geographer and historian, will enrich that volume. In 
that place, I shall endeavor to give the reader an inti- 
mate picture of home-life in France. The many-sided 
features of this life, with the charming customs and 
social instincts of the people, will be there presented. 

The third volume will be devoted to the heroisms of 
the present war and will be illustrated with forty map? 
of the battle-fronts. 

The fourth volume of the series, illustrated with rare 
old prints which I have gathered from the book-shops, 
will present the outstanding features of the political his- 
tory of France. 

xin. 



In a fifth volume, again illumined with old prints, my 
Paris by Night and by Day will be given to the reader. 

In a sixth volume, the France of Victor Hugo will be 
the theme, profusely illustrated. In its material, which 
I have had in preparation for a dozen years, it will con- 
vey to the reader many of the reader's own thoughts, I 
fancy, in the philosophy of life. I can never break from 
the thought, that always my reader is a philosoplier, 
and so this book will take us through delightful fields 
together. 

These books, I may say, are the results of studies 
which Miss Diver and myself have made together. It 
is my faith that the reader will feel drawn within the 
circle of these studies, and so our mutual interests in 
the people at home and in the allied world may be deep- 
ened and widened. 

Of France, may I not hope the reader will say, as he 
closes the present volume : — 



FRANCE, THE FRANCE I LOVE 

I. 

France, the France I love, is smiling, 

While her myriad guns are bombing; 
Something in her soul's beguiling 

Peace, while Mars' vast force is drumming. 
What is this 
Wondrous bliss 
Cheering thus wounded France? 
Bullets fly, 
Tell me why 
France's eyes with peace may dance? 

II. 

Flaming eyes, Indeed, my France is 

Casting on the brutal cowards; 
Flaming swords with crimson glances 
Tell a tale that Fury forwards. 
Why is peace, 
Joyous peace, 
Come to France — weak and strong, 
High and low. 
All ^glow, 
Mingling vengeance thus with song? 



III. 

Avenging France? — is Europe's Defender; 
Peaceful France? — is Europe's Rainbow; 
"Utter force?"— for the Pretender; 

Joy? — yes; — Germany's last vain-blow! 
Joy and peace, 
Threats shall cease ; — 
Never more Teuton scare! 
Peace and joy 
Past alloy ; — 
Glorious freedom everywhere! 

IV. 

Come with me to view the Nation 

Passing through her bitter trials; 
Lovely France, in her creation. 
All our present soul beguiles. 
We shall glow 
As we go. 
Step by step, heart with heart, 
Finding why. 
Spirits high, 
France, my France ! fulfils her part. 

DU BOIS H. LOUX 
New York, Sept. 20, 1918 



xvt. 



PHYSICAL MAP 




IRON AND COAL 



Coal Mines ■■ 

Iron Mmes HB 

Matal Industrial Centers 




CELTIC GAUL 




GROWTH OF FRANCE 



ORIGINAL DOMAIN 




1000 A.D. 



France under the Capets — Hugh Capet 


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GOTHIC GAUL 




My Tribute to France 



The Valley of the Makers-of-Liberty. 
I. 

The Yankees, who Saint Mihiel choose, 
Reclaim, with France, her far-famed Meuse. 

The First American Army in France, in company 
with French units, triumphantly struck St. Mihiel, on 
the Meuse, September 12th, 1918. 

A chosen place among the makers-of-liberty for the 
free peoples of Europe fell at once to the Yankees. The 
Meuse is the river of heroic achievements in the cause 
of freedom. 

On the Meuse, at its mouth, near Briel, an hour out 
from Rotterdam, the Dutch, in 1572, struck their first 
successful blow against the Spanish invaders. 

By the Treaty of Verdun, on the Meuse, three and 
twenty miles from St. Mihiel, in 843, France obtained 
separation from the German aspirants of government. 
For four years the great fortress of Verdun has success- 
fully breasted the advance of the descendants of the 
German treaty-makers. 



2 MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 

On the Meuse, below Verdun, distant 80 miles from 
St. Mihiel, Sedan awaits her vindication for the fateful 
day of the 1st September, 1870. The liberation of St. 
Mihiel spells the release of Sedan from the toils of 
the foe. 

On the banks of the same Meuse, further in the 
direction of Rotterdam, 228 miles from Paris, Namur, 
in Belgium, still overrun by its ruthless conquerors, 
raises its picturesque, if battle-scarred head, in hope of 
deliverance. On the Meuse is Liege, a short way on. 

South of St. Mihiel, on the Meuse as it narrows toward 
its source, lies peaceful Vaucouleurs, where Joan of Arc 
first made known her mission to the Sire of Baudricourt, 
and besought him to send her to the French court. Here 
a national monument rises in memory of the immortal 
Maid. In this place we are in the region of Toul, whose 
fortress is now also defended by the American Army. 
Toul is one of the most ancient towns of Lorraine, and 
was early subjugated by the Romans. Its bishopric 
was founded as early as 350 by the Irish monk St 
Mansuy. Twenty miles from Toul lies Nancy. 

Still on the Meuse, where the Mouzon empties in, 202 
miles from Paris rests lovely Neufchateau, in whose 
square the bronze statue to Joan of Arc by Petre was 
erected in 1857. 

Down he Meuse, a short trip from Neufchateau, and 
as beautiful as it is exhilarating to travel, is Domremy- 
la-Pucelle, the birthplace of Joan of Arc. 




JOAN OF ARC— Smeeton et Tilly. 



4 MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 

Just on the banks of the stream, with its gaiden so 
beloved of Jeanne, stands the humble cottage in which 
the Maid was born. 

Over the arched door of the cottage are the royal arms 
of France and those assigned to Joan and her family. 

Above is a niche containing a kneeling figure of the 
heroine. 

On the side of the cottage where the roof slopes down 
toward the Church in which Jeanne worshipped, is the 
tiny room she called her own. Possibly the altar of the 
Church was visible from her window; in any event the 
music of the sanctuary ever floated in on the child. 

In the garden in front is a group by Mercie, represent- 
ing Jeanne quitting the paternal roof led by the Genius 
of France. 

The valley of the Meuse, where Jeanne played as a 
child, is low-lying and grassy, with the round wooded 
hills bounding it upwards. 

At the foot of one of these hills, ten minutes away 
frorh the cottage is the clear crystal spring, whose sweet 
waters are hidden in clumps of pretty, if thorny, bushes. 
Near the spring was the old, old beech tree, in whose 
spreading branches Jeanne loved to intertwine the 
precious garlands of flowers picked from the meadows 
by her hands. 

Elsewhere are gardens, sweet and companionable to 
walk in. 

The air breathes with divine associations. 



•1. !i >i ,1' 1, , 1 <. ».i lift I, .„riirfT,i7¥'. lii liTi I . .1 .1 ,iM.Hr',ii.i>ii 'ixem^n m' '!MM 




JOAN OF ARC— Eyles. 



6 MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 

There Jeanne climbed the hills ; there she played in 
the grass ; there is the Church, the Bible and the saints, 
with their mystery and legends. 

Here the holy ardor first fell on Jeanne's soul. 

Here, in her reserved dreamy way, never disobedient, 
not always understood, not awkward, never idle, liking 
work for work's sake, as Is characteristic of the French 
people, Jeanne, the embodiment of sympathy, running 
from spinning to take care of some sick one In the 
village, possessed her great secret. 

How early she could not tell, her heart, she felt, was 
beating in unison with the Realm of France. 

That was her secret. 

The Genius of France even in her childhood was 
leading her. 

This early love of country came naturally. Soldiers, 
coming and .going, were always passing and repassing 
through the village of Domremy. 

Domremy was on the direct route from the Paris side 
of France to the Duchy of Lorraine. 

From the soldiers' talk Jeanne learned of the need of 
the Realm. Her Realm, she learned, was in bondage. 

The sighing of the woods told the story again and 
again to the opening mind of the child. The flowers 
took counsel with her, as she weaved them into the 
garlands which she hung in the beech tree, or carried 
to the sick. The land had no leader, they told her. 



MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 7 

And in God is victory, the songs breathed to her in 
the Church. 

She kept h«r flock of sheep on the border of the forest 
up the hill, whence the Meuse drew some of its waters. 
And while with her lambs, the shepherdess began to 
hear the Voice calling her. It was the story of Moses 
and the burning bush over again. 

The Masses sung at the Church inspired her the more. 

'T must go to fight to regain the Kingdom of France," 
all things whispered everywhere. 

Jeanne reposed absolute faith in her Voice. 

To her it was the message of God. 

She developed rapidly now ; her prayers were constant ; 
she chafed at delays. 

At length she gained audience with the authorities of 
France. 

"I am come and am sent to you from God," she said. 

"Child, what do you mean?" 

"I was keeping my flock. A Voice called me." 

"What did the voice say ?" 

"God is full of pity for the people of France." 

"And—?" 

" 'Have no fear,' the Voice said." 

"Have no what?" 

"In the name of God the men shall fight, and God 
will give the victory." 

"Why are you here?" 

"I have come from the Kingdom of Heaven." 



8 MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 

Poor little child ! 

But Orleans was besieged. The country was deso- 
late. Jeanne was there. Her Voice would be heard. 

''I have come from the King of Heaven to raise the 
siege," she persisted. 

''Do you believe in God?" men asked. 

"Indeed, yes." "I come in God's name." 

They drank in her faith; her face was sublime with 
its exaltation ; what is fairer and holier than a child's 
face — a young woman's face — in whose heart is a sense 
of holy destiny? 

The sense of her destiny was incontrovertible. It 
shone in her eyes, swayed with her young body, was 
carried in her quiet gestures, conveyed itself in her 
repose. 

This young person, before her peers, was unshakable 
in her faith. 

There was a sword behind the altar of a certain 
Church ; give her that sword ; she would lead the 
army on. 

One interview here, another one there, advanced the 
Maid in France. 

The Duke of Lorrain sent for the child to heal him 
in his sickness. She was heard in Vaucouleurs ; she 
was heard beyond. 

Men marveled at her grace, wondered at her wisdom 
and counsel, were astonished at her military ardor. 




JOAN OF ARC— Staal. 



10 MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 

*'In God's name you keep me here overlong. France 
shall be saved !" 

"Do not follow your purpose, the way is long and 
beset with grievous dangers; the enemies of France 
are near." 

"I fear them not." 

**God will guide me." 

*To do my work was I born." 

This unabated faith in destiny could not be spurned. 

Jeanne was heard. She acquired the sword. 

Now they sang round her banner, Veni Creatur Spir- 
itus. On to the suburbs of Paris, to St. Denis, she wore 
the sword from the Altar, with the five crosses on its 
blade. 

She was chaste and beautiful and courageous. 

She rode on her charger in front of the battle. 

She v^as feared, she was hated, she was loved. 

Her saints were tangible and radiant and filled her 
heart as she battled, and greatly encompassed her 
progress. 

She said so. Whatever she meant, men discovered, 
at least, that she meant to win victories. 

He is the true leader who means victory, we shall 
find Napoleon saying later. 

"Go on, Daughter of God," said her Voice, "go on, 
go on ; I will be thine aid." 

The Maid of Orleans brought victory to the arms of 
France. 




STATUE OF LIBERTY AT NIGHT— N. Y. World. 



12 MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 

But it was an early age. She was a frail thing. The 
enemies of France were powerful. War has its vicissi- 
tudes. France must be defeated. The Maid of Orleans 
must be captured. Judgment must be passed on 
La Pucelle to the death. 

It was brought to pass. 

The flames were lighted. 

The Genius of France — or personify it what you 
will — led her completely to fulfil her destiny. 

She had done what she could to restore liberty. 

Since her time, France has defined liberty: — it is the 
sentiment which opens the door to the brave, clearly 
to fulfil all destiny. 

By this is meant, for us at this time, the mystery of 
the outpouring of stanch young lives, to beat back the 
foe that still threatens France. 

On the banks of the Meuse, not far from the cottage 
where Joan of Arc was born, sons of America, today, 
are laying down their lives willingly, that liberty may 
not perish in the earth. The First American Army is 
striking at St. Mihiel, down the Meuse from Domremy. 
France, in the twentieth, as in the fifteenth century, feels 
that the miracle has happened. 

Even if only in memory of the men who' fell at St. 
Mihiel on the 12th of September, 1918, shall we not do 
well to begin our Tribute to France, with the picture 
of Joan of Arc first on her knees for France? 

Was it not said by one general to another, at Verdun, 



MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 13 

when the tide suddenly, almost mysteriously turned in 
the favor of the arms of France and her Allies, ''Some- 
body must have been praying for us at home?" 



11. 

American Crusaders of Liberty 

The Foe in France, in seeking strife, 
Strikes at the roots of human life. 

To the Congress of the United States of America in 
joint session assembled, on the second day of April, 
1917, President Woodrow Wilson gave utterance to 
these sacred words : 

"With a profound sense of the solemn and even tragical 
character of the step I am now taking, and the grave 
responsibilities which it involves, but in unhesitating 
obedience to what I deem my constitutional duty, I 
advise that the Congress declare the recent course of the 
Imperial German Government to be in fact nothing less 
than war against the people of the United States ; that it 
formally accept the status of belligerent which has been 
thus thrust upon it ; and that it take immediate steps not 
only to put the country in a more thorough state of 
defense but also to exert all its power and employ all 
its resources to bring the Government of the German 
Empire to terms and end the war," 



14 MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 

In obedience to this advice, and by Act of Congress, 
the Expeditionary Forces of the United States are now 
in France. 

The words of President Wilson are burning in the 
breast of every man who is a member of these forces : 

"The wrongs against which we now array ourselves 
are no common wrongs : they cut to the roots of human 
life." 

Everywhere evincing the President's purpose to 
spare nothing to bring the Invader to terms, the sons 
of our Republic already have earned the title, "American 
crusaders for liberty and humanity." 

Some of our men have laid down their Hves willingly 
at Amiens to this end: — at Amiens, where Peter the 
Hermit preached the first crusade. Some of our men 
have fallen up the blood-stained road of the centuries 
from Amiens to Arras. Many have fallen at Chateau- 
Thierry, in the region where the Germans were defeated 
in 1575. 

These have been willing sacrifices for liberty. They 
have been made before the American Army has been 
organized as such. 

Incidents of valor have come before us, that make 
us proud of our men. Taking but a single instance, 
witness the heroism of the battle in Belleau Wood. 
What zeal there was that the first dead, if possible, 
should not rest in the hands of the foe! How often 
the incident now narrated in verse, and but little 



MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 15 

altered from the facts as told in the despaches, found 
repetition ! 

THE SERVICE CROSS IN BELLEAU WOOD 

Midday and cool Simpson Spahr, 

And out in front was "No Man's Land!" 
Up the bomb-swept steep lay Jerry Garr, 

Bleeding to death at a foeman's hand! 

"Here, sir, I!" — young Spahr cried, when the Major called 

For a man to stem the foe's fierce fire! 
"I, sir, will bring Garr back!" — And out unappalled. 

Thru shot and shell, he crept to the wire! 

Midday, and machine guns searched the hand 

That was lifted to make a breach 
In the web of steel that bounded "No Man's Land," 

And parted Jerry from Simpson's reach! 

The wire cut, thru the breach Spahr crept. 
And charmed was the life he seemed to bear! — 

Closer the enemy aimed, nearer the bullets swept, 
Around and over the Yankee pair! 

And now, on either side of "No Man's Land," 
'Twas seen that Spahr had reached the spot. 

But dared not lift poor Jerry up, nor stand! — 
One upright moment, both sides knew, was all the gunners 
sought ! 

Midday, and flat upon his breast. 
The hero lay, and loaded Jerry on his back! 

Then down across the lurid dipping crest 
The burden-bearer crawled, alack! 



16 MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 

Down the steep into Belleau Wood, 
The dauntless Simpson made his return, 

Shielding Jerry as best he could, 
Hoping the Major's "well done" to earn! 

Midday, and out from the "bourne of Time and Place' 
The angels have carried the soul of Garr; 

Safe at the Major's feet — simple the grace- 
Smiled the swooning hero of the war! 



III. 

Early Struggle for Freedom in France. 

Cities whose freedom dearly was bought, 
In the Foe's clutches still are caught. 

We may dwell for a moment on the far-flung battle 
line that greeted the American Army as it landed in 
France. 

It is greatly significant, that of the thousands of 
municipalities of France, the leading cities of the present 
battle-line were the first cities to emerge from the 
bondage of mediaeval feudalism. 

Very early in the history of France^earlier in France 
than in England — a certain number of these municipali- 
ties, through the association of their inhabitants under 
oath for the purpose of defense, obtained a specia' 
charter of liberties. First of these in the point of time 



MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 17 

stands St. Quentin. Before 1077 she was in possession 
of her charter. Next in order, before 1099, came 
Beauvais with her charter. Then followed Noyon, in 
1108; Amiens, 1113; Soissons, 1126. 

Considering the fact that, at the time of the French 
Revolution, in 1789, there were 43,915 municipalities in 
France, we have reason to bfe moved with gratitude 
that our first call of service has brought us within the 
theatre of the earliest of the achievements of France in 
her progress toward liberty. America has been privi- 
leged to help stem the tide of oppression at the gates 
of the cities whence freedom has sprung. 

Has not the farewell blessing of Lafayette on 
America, for whose freedom he hesitated not to offer 
his life and services, once again descended on us, and 
at a time when the land of Lafayette, and it most valued 
of cities, offer most appropriate opportunities for us to 
return the devotion of Lafayette in kind? 

How his words now thrill us with their newer, 
grander significance ! ''Unbounded wishes to America ! 
May this immense temple of freedom ever stand a lesson 
to oppressors, and an example to the oppressed, and a 
sanctuary for the rights of mankind !" 

American soldiers ! how befitting that you should have 
opened your campaign in France, by the side of her 
sons, in the region of cities that first emerged from the 
yoke of oppression in the land of Lafayette ! After 
eight hundred years of the struggle of France against 



18 MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 

tyranny and barbarism — a struggle that has threatened 
and now threatens her most vital parts — you are the 
expeditionary forces of the United States on ground 
that has been hallowed with the blood of the brothers 
of Lafayette ! Yours is the glory of the defense of the 
soil where Republicanism was first in the making! 



IV. 
Defending the "Motherly Land/' 

All are defending the motherly land, 
Inspiring, 'tis, magnificent, grand! 

It is the miracle! exclaims Victor Giraud. 

''Caitholics, Freethinkers, Israelites, Protestants, 
believers in every type of philosophy or religion, noble 
and peasant, the business man and workingman, all 
groups of society, united, melted into one, lifted up and 
carried away, inspired by the same impulse. One 
feeling and one alone sway the mind. All prejudice, 
all bias swept away forever by the hurricane from the 
East. The spirit of grace breathed, fervent patriots 
awoke. All instinctively, without any abstract theories, 
set out for the defense of France, the sweet motherly 
land." 



MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 19 

How calm the narration, in face of the miracle! 

At the end of eight hundred years of the freedom of 
St. Quentin and Noyon and Soissons it is so ! 

The boys of all the world are marching on to victory 
in the "sweet motherly land !" 

With every ship that sails a tribute is borne to the 
motherly land. 

The wheels of industry from sea to sea are turning 
by night and by day for the triumph of victory in the 
motherly land. 

All employment in the allied world is branded non- 
essential that is not dedicated to the bleeding motherly 
land. 

V. 

How Long the Struggle? 

"It won't be long, but as long as needs be;" 
"We'll do this work well," the soldiers agree. 

And what of the streaming columns of the sons of 
France that pour into Noyon and Soissons with their 
faces toward St. Quentin and Laon, and the Rhine 
beyond ? 

Emile Faguet photographs the picture: 

"Trains are passing by loaded with soldiers who are 



20 MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 

going- back to their regiments. Too many in my 
opinion are singing and shouting aloud. But many of 
them are quiet and determined, very simple in manner, 
with a look of decision in their eyes. In short, they 
are full of confidence themselves, and inspire it in 
others. Yo,u feel that they are ready for anything and 
afraid of nothing. Lord, in their coarse linen tunics 
and their twilled trousers, Lord, how handsome they 
are! Their speech is not confused or boastful: Tt 
won't be long, but in any case as long as needs be.' 
'When each one is sure of all the others, it is all right.' 
French good sense and French courage are in each one 
of their words. Brave fellows !" 

The train moves. It is La Marseillaise that is caught 
up from coach to platform. How they sing! 



VI. 

La Marseillaise. 

Oh victory song, oh song of songs ! 
Oh song that in my soul belongs ! 

Incomparable song ! Song that searches our innermost 
selves, whether we hear it on the vibrant lips of the sons 
of France in the land of its birth, or in distant climes! 



LA MARSEILLAISE 

By Rouget de U isle 



Harmonized "by 
Elsa Lachenbruch 




Aliens, en-fants de la pa! - tri 
A-mour sa- ere de la pa - tri 
Ye sons of freedpmywake.to glo 



e,Xejo\irde 
e Conduis,sou- 



^^ 



^^ 



.J!'^/, JJ i i . n i j ^ 



gloire est arri - ve! Centre nous de la, tyran- 

-tiens nos brasvengeurs; Xi^er- te, Li- ber* te che- 
wy- riads bid you rise! ybur ehildren,wivesand grandsires 



>''i\\\ \ \m I J f r 




ni - e X 6ten-dard sanglant est le- ve. teten 

ri - e, Combats a-vec tes de - fen-seursi Com- 

hoa-ry! Beholdtheir tears and hear their cries j Be - 



ti JlJJl 



m 



ffT 



i 



dard 
bats 



sang-lant est le - ve. Entendez-vous danslescanv 

a-vec tes de-fen-seurs! Sous nosdrapeatpt que la Vic - 

their tears and their cries! Sliall hateful tyrants, rtiisehiefs 




pagnes Mu - 
toire Ac-coure 

With 



%\x ces fe-ro-ces sol dats?; 
a tes ma-les ac- cents! 
hi' reUng/iosts,a ruffian band, 



f 

lis 
Que 




viennent jusque dans nos bras, 
tes en-nemis ex-pi-rants 
fright and desolate the land, 



Egor-ger nos fils,nos compagnes? 
Voient ton triomphe et noire gloire! 
ffhile peace and liberty lie bleedi7ig! 



Chorus 




Aux ar - meSjCitoy ensi, for- mez. vosbattail- 

\!rp arms, fo amis ye brave! ThB He - 7'o'ssu>ordwi\ 




lonsU Mar- chons^ mar- chons! 

' sheath P March on, March on. 






QvHim sangim - pur a - breu- vs nos sil-lons! 

Alf hjearts re-solved, on Vic - to-ry or death! 



S 



iiU. ii|ij i j[^ 



24 MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 

Small wonder, it is Heine, who writes in 1830, on 
hearing the strains of the original song from his 
window : 

"A strange joy seizes me, as I sit writing ! music 
resounded under my window, and in the elegaic rage of 
its large melody I recognized that hymn with which 
the handsome Barbaroux and his companions once 
greeted the city of Paris. What a song ! It thrills me 
with fiery delight, it kindles within me the glowing star 
of enthusiasm and the swift rocket of desire. Swelling, 
burning torrents of song rush from the heights of free- 
dom. I can write no more, this song intoxicates my 
brain." 

Small wonder that the song is considered the most 
soul-stirring of all national airs, and is perhaps most 
often sung. 

It is the wild pulse-stirring, revolutionary song of 
1792. 

It was written one winter night by a young artillery 
officer at Strasburg. The song quickly sprea:d from 
Strasburg to Alsace, where the melody was caught by 
the Marseilles troops then on their way to Paris. It 
created an immediate and tremendous furore in the 
French capital, and soon the refrain was sung all over 
th^ comitry. ^ " : 

When, since its writing, has the song abated its 
thrill? 




LAFAYETTE-Ethiou. 



26 MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 

In what crisis of her history, has France wanted its 
words on the lips of her sons? 

Now it is sung when young Gambetta changes over- 
night the destiny of France. 

Now it is caught up and carried through the dark- 
ness, until daybreak, from one end of Paris to the other, 
as some prima donna at the Opera, draped, it may be, 
as a priestess, in white and gold, has waved the tricolor 
aloft and recited the words. 

Even now it is echoing through the streets of 
America, calling on her youth to be no slackers in the 
cause of freedom. 

La Marseillaise — words and music — we love and are 
thrilled by it. 



VII. 
The Contribution of France to Civilization. 

Come hear Guizot, and know the story, 

Of which La Marseillaise is the resonant glory. 

La Marseillaise, it has been said, is the revolutionary 
song of 1792. To place it in the setting of the Revolu- 
tion, we must pause to read the meaning of history with 
with Francois Guizot. And before we hear Guizot we 
should see the figure of this foremost historian as he 



MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 27 

treads the Sorbonne. The picture is at the hand of the 
English writer Captain Gronow, of Waterloo fame. He 
writes : 

"M. Guizot, when he commenced his lectures on 
public history at the Sorbonne, appeared like a luminous 
m-eteor on the political horizon. The expression of his 
views on ancient literature, the energy and dignity with 
which he explained to his admiring audience the phil- 
osophy and the religion of Rome and Greece, his 
ironical comparison of the present claimants to renown, 
were listened to with an enthusiasm which proved how 
thoroughly they were understood, and how fully they 
were appreciated. It was a sight which can never be 
efifaced from memory, when the crowded hall was filled 
with impatient students awaiting the presence of their 
much beloved professor, who with difficulty threaded 
his way, amid immense applause, with a slow and solemn 
step, to the chair of the professor. He poured forth, at 
first slowly, in a continued flow of elegant language, 
eulogisms upon the great writers in his language, and 
then, with an impetuosity that seemed to convey an 
electric impetus around, his face, at first sombre and 
inexpressive, lighted up with supernatural animation ; 
and as he gazed around, he inspired each of his auditors 
with the conviction that he was listening to a being of 
a superior order." 

Having the man in our perspective, let us aproach 
his mind. He writes in his History of Civilization — 



28 MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 

that book which holds the historical student spell-bound 
from cover to cover: 

"Take all the facts of which the history of a nation 
is composed, all the facts which we are accustomed to 
consider as the elements of its existence — take its insti- 
tutions, its commerce, its industry, its wars, the various 
details of its government; and if you would form some 
idea of them as a whole, if you would see their various 
bearings on each other, if you would appreciate their 
value, if you would pass a judgment upon them, what 
is it you desire to know? Why, what they have done 
to forward the progress of civilization — what part they 
have acted in this great drama — what influence they 
have exercised in aiding its advance. It is not only by 
this that we form a general opinion of these facts, but 
it is by this that we try them, that we estimate their 
true value. They are, as it were, the rivers of whom 
we ask how much water they have carried to the ocean. 
Civilization is, as it were, the grand emporium of a 
people, in which all its wealth — all the elements of life — 
all the powers of its existence are stored up." 

'Tt seems to me that the first idea comprised in the 
word civilization is the notion of progress, of develop- 
ment. It calls up within us the notion of a people 
advancing, of a people in a course of improvement and 
melioration. 

"Now what is this progress? What is this develop- 
ment? The first notion which strikes us is the progress 



MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 29 

of society; the melioration of the social state; the 
carrying to higher perfections the relations between 
man and man. It awakens within us at once the notion 
of an increased national prosperity, of a greater activity 
and better organization of the social relations. On one 
hand there is a manifest increase in the power and well- 
being of society at large; and on the other a more 
equitable distribution of this power and this well-being 
among the individuals of which society is composed." 

And now Guizot carries us backward through time, 
that we may sweep forward with new momentum. We 
shall strike in where his narrative is beginning to 
account for the struggle of St. Quentin, Soissons, 
Amiens, and Noyon, of the far-spread battle-line. 
Guizot writes : 

''At length, in Z76 A. D., the Huns, entering Europe 
from northern Asia, subdued or drove before them the 
Sclavonian and Gothic tribes. Then began the struggle 
for empire. Wave followed wave in the great migra- 
tion of nations — a movement which continued to roll 
tumultuously over Europe for more than three centuries 
after the downfall of the Western Empire." 

The Huns and their successors have their day until 
Charlemagne rises, with his passion for the defense of 
society. His work is drawn for us at the hand of Guizot 
in a line: 

"It mortified and grieved him to see all within his 
territory so precarious and unsettled — to see anarchy 



30 MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 

and brutality everywhere prevailing, — and it was the 
first wish of his heart to better this wretched condition 
of society. In whatever point of view we regard the 
reign of Charlemagne, we always find its leading char- 
acteristic to be the desire to overcome barbarism, and 
to advance civilization. We see this conspicuously in 
his foundation of schools, in his collecting of libraries, 
in his gathering about him the learned of all countries, 
in the favor he showed towards tlie influence of the 
Church, for everything, in a word, which seemed likely 
to operate beneficially upon society in general, or the 
individual man." 

After Charlemagne's death there was no man sincere 
and strong to hold his empire together. It crumbled 
for the want of a great mind to direct it. Guizot 
explains : 

: "Truth alone has a right to reign in the world ; facts 
have no merit but in proportion as they bear its stamp 
and assimilate themselves more and more to its image; 
all true grandeur springs from mind; all expansion 
belongs to it. 

"The first characteristic of political legitimacy is to 
disclaim violence as the source of authority, and to 
associate it with a moral notion, a moral force — with 
the notion of justice, of right, of reason. This is the 
primary element from which the principle of political 
legitimacy has sprung forth." 

Out of the chaos that resulted from the littleness of 



MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 31 

the petty princes, who fell heir to the remai-ns of 
Charlemagne's kingdom, a forward movement was 
started again in the ninth century. Guizot, as always, 
explains the movement in a sentence: 

"Little societies everywhere began to be formed ; 
liittle states to be cut out according to the measure, if 
I may say so, of the capacities and prudence of men. 
These societies gradually became connected by a tie — 
we have the feudal system oozing at last out of the 
bosom of barbarism." 

That the struggle of these societies toward liberty 
will be long and fierce is indicated by the great French 
scholar in a word: — "It was natural enough that the 
Germanic element should first prevail." 

From that moment the conflict. It will entail miseries 
from which St. Quentin will be the first society whose 
solemn vow to defend itself from the foe shall win a 
charter from the crown. From Alfonzo V., in 1020, 
Laon had government sanction to defend its liberties. 
And in 1100, across the Channel, London received its 
charter. 

Is the struggle long? 

AH is well, Guizot reads early on the horizon — "we 
may look forward pre-assured to the hour when victory 
will declare itself." 

And now, as we are on the eve of the Revolution, 
once again this French historian will remind us that 
the human thread in history is its golden thread : 



32 MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 

"The 'history of civilization is the history of the 
progress of the human race toward realizing the idea 
of humanity, through the extension and perfection of 
the social relations, and as affected, advanced, or 
retarded, by the character of the various political and 
civil institutions v^hich have existed. I have no hesita- 
tion in asserting that this history is the most noble, the 
most interesting of any, and that it comprehends every 
other. Civilization is the great fact in which all others 
merge ; in which they all end, in which they are all con- 
densed, in which all others find their importance. 

"Let it not, I beseech you, be forgotten — 'bear in mind, 
as we proceed with these lectures, that it is in its diver- 
sity of elements, and their constant struggle, that the 
essential character of our civilization consists." 

Thus we come down to 1789. 

We are ready for Victor Hugo's painting of the 
Revolution. It is drawn swiftly on the lips of the 
dying Republican. 



MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 33 

VIII. 

The French Revolution. 

The story oi La Marseillaise is bloody, 
But just the blood is not the study. 

*'In voting for the Republic," it is given the Repub- 
lican to say, ''I voted for fraternity, concord, the Dawn! 
I aided in the overthrow of errors and prejudices, and 
such an overthrow produces hght; we hurled down the 
old world, and that vase of wretchedness, by being 
poured over the human race, became an urn of joy." 

And now the bloodiness poured from the vase of 
wretchedness is at the end of Patriot's tongue: 

''Let us say a few more words. Beyond the Revolu- 
tion, which, taken in its entity, is an immense human 
affirmation, '93, alas. You consider it lawless, but what 
was the whole monarchy ? Carrier is a bandit, but what 
name do you give to Montrevel? Fouquier Tainville 
is a scoundrel, but what is your opinion about 
Lamoignon-Baville ? Maillard is frightful, but what of 
Saulx-Tavennes, if you please? Jourdan Coupe-Tete is 
a monster, but less so than the Marquis de Louvois. I 
pity Marie Antoinette, Archduchess and Queen, but I 
also pity the poor woman, who, in 1685, while suckling 
her child, was fastened, naked to the waist, to a stake, 



34 MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 

while her infant was held at a distance. What do you 
say of this punishment of Tantalus adapted to a woman ? 
Remember this carefully, sir, the French Revolution had 
its reasons, and its wrath will be absolved by the future. 
Its result is a better world ; and a caress for the human 
race issues from its most terrible blows. The brutalities 
of progress are called revolutions, but when they are 
ended, this fact is recognized ; that the human race has 
been chastened, but it has moved onwards." 

But this dying Republican — what part did he play in 
events? — what does he say now of what he did in the 
hey-dey of his blood, when passion ran riot in Paris ? 

Victor Hugo gives him his words : 

"My country summoned me. I obeyed. There were 
abuses, and I combated them ; tyranny, and I destroyed 
it; rights and principles, and I proclaimed and con- 
fessed them ; the territory was invaded, and I defended 
it ; France was menaced, and I ofifered her my chest ; 
1 was not rich, and I am poor. I succored the oppressed 
I relieved suffering. I did my duty according to my 
strength, and what good I could. I ever supported the 
onward march of the human race towards light." 



MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 35 

IX. 
The Volcano Awaits Napoleon. 

L' ORCHESTRE 

(Lachambeaudie) 

Cynic and Optimist one day- 
Discussed their systems grave and gay. 
"Good friend," quoth Pessimist, "you see, 
Your Golden Age can never be. 
Each mortal holds his special creed. 
When did you find ev'n two agreed? 
We all are brethren, I admit, 
Yet somehow nothing comes of it." 

Just as friend Optimist began 
Describing his Utopian plan, 
A bill upon a door hard by. 
Headed, 'Grand Concert,' met his eye. 
They took their tickets, entered in. 
Was ever such discordant din? 
Each instrument, both great and small. 
Musicians tune them, one and all. 

Cried Pessimist, "What parallel 

My theories sets forth so well? 

Such din and turmoil, to my mind, 

Depict the state of humankind!" 

A moment later, at a sign, 

Discord is harmony divine. 

No note is lost till strong and full 

The thousands make a glorious whole. 



36 MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 

Said Optimist, triumphant now, 

"Good friend, thus much you must allow, 

If no two men e'er thought as one, 

A man can move in unison. 

When each has found his proper sphere, 

As hath each trained musician here, 

Life and society will be 

One vast concerted harmony." 

AlwavvS France has endured as seeing the Invisible. 
"Long live Liberty!" w^as the cry of 1789, v^hen as yet 
Liberty was not. "Unhappy France !" cries the his- 
torian of the Revolution. "Smiling Liberty !" cry the 
men of 1789 who are bringing it in. 

France has kept her eyes on the smiling face of 
Liberty. The final good that will flow for the world out 
of her Revolution, she believes, will be as illimitable as 
her heart is illimitable. 

Crimes, excesses, destructive ideas, abominations? 
Yes ; the great Revolution was attended with these. 
But with lofty ideals as well. And with lofty deeds. 
Whence stream the grandest memories of the people of 
France ? From the Revolution. Whence does she 
claim her proudest patrimony? Ask why she celebrates 
the 14th July. 

The Revolution of 1789 was the v^ork of the French 
Nation. 

It was the.peopj-e abolishing Feudalism, 




NAPOLEON BONAPARTE— Jean Baptiste. 



38 MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 

Peasant and noble alike joined hands for human 
emancipation. 

The atrocities committed? It is the thought of Louis 
Madelin, that this appaling ferocity, with its hideous, 
even bestial passion marked the rise of a better nature 
from the depths of men's hearts. The people were 
finding themselves in their own bloodshed. 

To Madelin there was always one at hand who was 
able to repress the reign of Terror: Napoleon Bonaparte ! 

In his work on the French Revolution he comes to the 
following sublime paragraph of the people finding them- 
selves through Napoleon : 

"The volcano had cast up its lava. Laden with 
precious metals and hideous scoria this had rolled down 
the mountain sides, and slowly it had cooled. But a 
short while since it had been laying all things waste: 
now, transformed into a granite of the most splendid 
kind, it was to serve as material for the construction of 
a new commonwealth. The French Empire (and the 
modern regime for a hundred years after it) was built 
with that mighty stone formed out of the lava Mirabeau 
let loose in the winter of 1789, the lava which Bonaparte 
subjugated in the autumn of 1799." 

Dropping the figure, the better day for France started 
in the craving for the military hand of the great General, 
that it might be laid on the mob to suppress its blind 
hatred. 

"Ah! If Bonaparte were only herel" 



MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 39 

But Napoleon was in Egypt. 

When his presence alone could guarantee to France 
the fruits of the Revolution of 1789. 

France, loving Liberty, has always loved order. This 
was the meaning of the cry for Bonaparte. 

Would Napoleon hear the cry? 

Let Madelin tell the story: 

"On the 19th Vendemiare strangely attired mes- 
sengers of the Directory made their appearance at the 
Palais-Bourbon. What was their news? There was a 
moment of wild delight. Long live the Republic! Was 
it true? Was it a dream? In a moment Paris, which 
had been so listless, Paris, which cared for nothing, not 
even for victories, Paris, which had been lying sense- 
less and almost dead, was to spring to her feet, quiver- 
ing with dehght, laughing and weeping ; men were seen 
exchanging frantic embraces, rushing hither and thither 
for news. One name was heard in every direction: 
Bonaparte! Bonaparte! Bonaparte had landed! Yes, 
he was there !" 



40 MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 



The Genius of Napoleon ; Great Maxims of War. 

This Napoleon's glory proves — 
"Quick as my thoughts my moves!" 

''I think, therefore I am," the world-moving French 
philosopher Descartes has said. 

Guizot echoes the thought as a historian. 

''If we look a little deeper, we discover that, besides 
the progress and melioration of social life, another 
development is comprised in our notion of civilization : 
namely, the development of the human mind and its 
faculties. 

''It is this development which so strikingly manifests 
itself in France and Rome in great epochs ; it is this 
expression of human intelligence which gives to them 
so great a degree of superiority in civilization. In these 
countries the godlike principle which distinguishes man 
from the brute exhibits itself with peculiar grandeur 
and power." 

Napoleon Bonaparte is never explained until we 
understand the extraordinary reaching of his mind for 
knowledge. 

"I entered Brienne, cind was happy," he writes of that 
military school in his eleventh year. "My mind was 



MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 41 

beginning to work ; I was anxious to learn, to know, 
to get on ; I devoured books."* 

That explains Napoleon. 

"No good," they call him, "except at geometry, and 
dry as a parchment." He writes it into his diary at 
fifteen. 

The boy Napoleon famished for knowledge! Up at 
four in the morning, living on one meal a day, and six 
hours sleep at nineteen, and saying, 'T have no inter- 
ests but my work." 

"I have succeeded because my moves have been as 
quick as my thoughts," is his last testimony. 

Plus the factor of chance, he was always saying, 
"the art of war is a calculation with close odds." 

Chance — for all his fascination for "dream-books" — 
Napoleon could never calculate ; it remained to him the 
"sealed mystery." 

His military maxims justify his own confession of 
the quickness of his thought, and what is more, of the 
persistence of his mind. 

"A plan of campaign should anticipate everything 
which an enemy can do," he writes, "and contain the 
mean-s of baffiing him." 

"A general should say to himself many times a day, 



*The reader is referred to the excellent Diary of Napoleon by 
R. M. Johnston, The Corsican, Boston and New York, 1910. 



42 MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 

If the enemy were to make his appearance in front, on 
my rigfht, on my left, what should I do?" 

"Never attack in front a position which admits of 
being turned." 

"Place yourself always in a good position for 
defense." 

"When you intend to engage in a decisive battle, 
avail yourself of all the chances of success ; more 
especially if you have to do with a great captain." 

"When the enemy threatens, meance him with an 
offensive movement. By this manoeuvre you prevent 
him from detaching a part of his troops and annoying 
your flanks, in case you should deem a retreat indis- 
pensable." 

"A good general, good officers, commissioned and 
non-commissioned, good organization, good instruction, 
and strict discipline make good troops. Enthusiasm, 
love of country, and the desire of contributing to the 
national glory, may also animate young troops with 
advantage." 

"Nothing is more important in war than unity in 
command." 

And this is the justification of the wisdom of Lloyd- 
George in his contention for a single leader of the 
allied forces : 

"The effect of discussing, making show of talent, and 
calling councils of war, will be what the effect of these 
things has been in every age; they will end in the 



MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 43 

adoption of the most pusillanimous, or (if the expression 
be preferred) the most prudent measures, which in war 
are almost uniformly the worst that can be adopted. 
True wisdom, so far as a general is concerned, consists 
in energetic determination." 

''There are certain things in war, of which the com- 
mander alone comprehends the importance. Nothing 
but his superior firmness and ability can subdue and 
surmount all difficulties." 

"To open the door to cowards, to men wanting in 
energy, or even to misguided brave men, is to destroy 
the military spirit of a nation." 

"An extraordinary situation requires extraordinary 
resolution." 

"How many things apparently impossible have never- 
theless been performed by resolute men who had no 
alternative but death !" 

"There is but one honorable way of being made a 
prisoner of war; that is, by being taken separately, and 
when you can no longer make use of your arms." 

"Every general-in-chief who undertakes to execute a 
plan which he knows to be bad, is culpable." 

"Every general-in-chief who, in consequence of 
orders from his superiors, gives battle with the cer- 
tainty of defeat, is equally culpable. In the latter case 
he should refuse to obey." 

"A general-in-chief should not suffer himself to be 
unduly affected by good or bad news." 



44 MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 

Every day's impressions should be classified in the 
general-in-chief's memory. 

"To be familiar with the geography and topography 
of the country ; to be skilful in making reconnaissance ; 
to be attentive to the despatch of orders ; to be capable 
of exhibiting with simplicity the most complicated 
movements of an army; — these are the qualifications 
that should distinguish the officer called to the station 
of chief of the staf?." 

"To reconnoitre rapidly defiles and fords ; to obtain 
guides that can be relied on; to interrogate the clergy- 
man and the postmaster ; to establish speedily an under- 
standing with the inhabitants ; in short, to answer all 
the inquiries of the general-in-chief on his arrival with 
the whole army; — such are the duties which come 
within the sphere of a good general of an advanced 
post." 

"Commanders-in-chief are to be guided by their own 
experience or genius. Tactics, evolutions, the science 
of the engineer and the artillery officer, may be learned 
from treatises, but generalship is acquired only by expe- 
rience and the study of the campaigns of all great cap- 
tains. Gustavus Adolphus, Turenne, Alexander, Han- 
nibal and Csesar, have all acted on the same principles." 

"To keep your forces united, to be vulnerable at no 
point, to bear down with rapidity upon important 
points — these are the principles which insure victory." 

"It is by the fear which the reputation of your arms 



MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 45 

inspires, that you maintain the fidelity of your aUies, 
and the obedience of conquered nations." 

"Read over and over again the campaigns of Alex- 
ander, Hannibal, Caesar, Gustavus, Turenne, Eugene. 
Make them your models. This is the only way to 
become a great general, and to master the secrets of 
the art of war. Your genius, when enlightened by this 
study, will induce you to reject such maxims as con- 
flict with the principles of those great commanders." 



XL 
The Soldier's Discipline. 

'Tis discipline, writes Bonaparte, 

On which a General grounds his art 

That there can be nothing greatly done without dis- 
cipline, whatever it costs, is also required to explain 
Napoleon, and the marvelous aptitude of his army. 

It was a first principle with him, that a soldier can 
keep faith with nothing but his flag. Discipline must 
be the apex of his faith. 

The two things worst to be said of an army, he 
writes, is, "It has no bread and no discipline." 

For the soldiers given to excesses — let them be 
relieved of duty — let the names of all such be pub- 



46 MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 

lished, "that they may incur the contempt of their 
fellow-citizens." So he addressed his army in Italy, at 
twenty-six. 

"Devotion to right principles, a share in the struggle 
against the foe both within and without," is an early 
expression of Napoleon's oWn passion. 

''Soldiers ! in fifteen days you have won six victories. 
But, soldiers ! you have really done nothing, if an 
uncompleted task still faces you!" The discipline was 
to be taken in hand in masterly fashion by every man 
in the service, acting for himself in this fashion. 

The pillage of sacred things was considered a mortal 
offense against discipline by Napoleon. 

"Tomorrow," is his measured and solemn word to 
his Army of Italy, "some of the men Who have rifled 
a church will be shot. It is a painful thing to have to 
do, and costs me many a pang." 

"Liberate peoples, respect them, repress pillage. 
Plunderers shall be shot without mercy." 

There can be no higher discipline than this ; there is 
no true discipline without this moral tone. 

Wellington paid Napoleon this compliment for tho 
spirit of discipline that ran through his army: "The 
French cavalry are the best in the world." 

The meaning of this is translated in action, as Victor 
Hugo describes the cavalry charge at the Battle of 
Waterloo. It is the terrible unleashing of the cavalry 
upon Wellington's columns, when a peasant guide had 



MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 47 

misinformed Napoleon of the terrain. The hollow of 
Ohain, unknown to Napoleon, as to the cavalry, yawned 
fatally up the road past the line of vision. The charge 
was given. Instantly the columns were in motion. 
Victory lay within the grasp of Napoleon. "We have 
nine chances in a hundred in our favor now," was 
Napoleon's word to Soult. 

But the fatal charge, which Hugo describes! 

"It was a fearful moment, — the ravine was there, 
unexpected, yawning, almost precipitous, beneath the 
horses* feet, and with a depth of twelve feet between the 
two sides. The second rank thrust the first into the 
abyss ; the horses reared, fell back, slipped with all four 
feet in the air, crushing and throwing their riders. There 
was no means of escaping; the entire column was one 
huge projectile. The force crushed the French, and 
the inexorable ravine would not yield until it was filled 
up. Men and horses rolled into it pell-mell, crushing 
each other, and making one large charnel-house of the 
gulf, and when this grave was full of living men the 
rest passed over them. Nearly one-third of Dubois' 
brigade rolled into this abyss. This commenced the 
loss of the battle." 

Why this unaccountable slip in Napoleon's direction 
of the battle? Were there no warnings of a chasm in 
the road? Yes, the little white chapel close by the 
Nivelles road. But the guide's assurance that all was 
well was taken in the place of certainty. "We might 



48 MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 

almost say, "is Hugo's comment on the situation, " -'that 
Napoleon's catastrophe was brought about by ;:a peas- 
ant's shake of the head." 

But why ? Why could it have happened ? Why 
might it not have been otherwise? Hugo answers the 
question for the world, raising the main point. 

"Was it possible for Napoleon to will the battle? We 
answer in the, negative. Why? On account of God. 
Bonaparte, victor at Waterloo, did not harmonize with 
the law of the nineteenth century. It was time : for this 
vast man to fall ; his excessive weight in human destiny 
disturbed the balance. This individual alone was of 
more account than the universal group : such plethoras 
of human vitality concentrated in a single head— the . 
world mounting to one man's brain — ^would be mortal 
to civilization if > they endured. The moment had arrived 
for the incorruptible supreme equity to reflect,, and it is 
probable that the principles and elements on which the 
regular gravitations of the moral order as of the material 
order complained. Streaming blood, over-crowded 
grave-yards, mothers in tears, are formidable pleaders. 
When the earth is suffering from an excessive ■ burd#T-V- 
there are mysterious groans from the shadow, whicto tteSl 
abyss hears. Napoleon had been denounced in infiMi- 
tude, and his fall was; decided. Waterloo is not a ' baftlev^ 
but a transformation of the Universe/'' ' " : 5;^ 

In other words, if w€ trace our ; way back to Napo- 
leon's boyhood, we shall find the extent to which His- 



MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 49 

personal ambition had overreached itself. France had 
been betrayed for the want of his following the earliest 
convictions bf his own mind and heart. 

It had been well for Bonaparte to teach every soldier 
to say, "I belong to the army of victory !" 

It had been well for France for the discipline of her 
army. 

It had served the glory of France for Napoleon to 
say, "No scientific retreats, but adjutant-generals who 
have dash and resolve!" 

It had been magnificent to follow the young leader 
n his address to the army: "Soldiers! you have rolled 
jown from the Apennines like a torrent !" 

Nothing exceeds the genius of Napoleon in his mental 
weighing of his great, generals: "Massena: bold, 
instinctive, active, indefatigable, decisive. Berthier: 
talented, forceful, courageous — everything. Augereau: 
strong of character, experienced, courageous, fortunate, 
liked by the soldiers." 

It had been well to repeat, line upon line, and precept 
to the end, "If attacked, resist stiffly, and hang on!" 

"Be on fire to forward the glory of the French 
people," had been equally in place. 

But— 

Napoleon, as Csesar, was human. 

In his youth he had written: "My firm resolve is to 
seek salvation only in the Republid. Vive la Repuhliquel 
I have sacrificed everything for the Republic." 



50 MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 

But he became the Man of Destiny. 

Like Caesar he could not put away the tempting 
crown. 

This meant everything, for it me^nt the reversion of 
his genius to common type. He became a dreamer of 
empty dreams. 

Victor Hugo gives a silhouette of the fatality of this 
aspect of Napoleon's genius. 

The scene is Waterloo, the night before the splendid 
dinner which Napoleon had ordered in Brussels to sig- 
nalize his certain triumph. 

A thunderstorm rages as the super-conqueror goes 
abroad to feel the tread of the battle-field. 

The words are now Hugo's : 

"It seemed to him as if destiny had made an appoint- 
ment with him on a fixed day and was punctual. He 
stopped his horse, and remained for some time motion- 
less, looking at the lightening and listening to the 
thunder. The fatalist was heard to cast into the night 
the mysterious words, — 'We are agreed.' Napoleon was 
mistaken, they were no longer agreed." 

"It is a pretty chess board," however, were Napo- 
leon's words at daybreak, when he had seated himself 
in a peasant's chair before a kitchen table on a carpet 
of straw, with the map of the battlefield spread before 
him, Soult standing at his side. 

And it was his day of Waterloo! 




NAPOLEON BONAPARTE— Versailles portrait. 



52 MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 

"A man must follow his fate," he had said, long years 
before, writing in his diary of the fall of Rousseau. 
Perhaps. 
But it is never necessary. 



XII. 
Napoleon's Greatness in His Fall. 

And when he has. fallen low, 

Out of his words better empires grow. 

The world bows its head with the fall of Napoleon. 

We have so much of his boyhod — so many letters ol 
his burning devotion to truth — so many memories of 
the affection of his soldiers and the adoration of the 
populace. • 'V 

''You are on fire to forward the glory Mttie French 
people," was his admiration of his army. {. It was a fire 
that burned in, his own breast. .. 

. The world Worships the xtian of courage. It can 
never be otherwise. And Napoleon possessed the 
supreme heights of the quality. He dared — even if 
blindly often, and not always well He too, worshipped 
valor. 

How he admired the courage of his marshals! 



MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 53 

"Berthier, Massena, Lannes — it is their rush to the 
front that carries the hesitant fortunes of the day!" 

Again, the tinge of melancholy that accompanied his 
gifted mind draws us to him.. Napoleon is but in his 
teens, when we find him exclaiming: ''Solitary always, 
I am in my room dreaming, and giving full sway to my 
melancholy. To what lengths will it drive me?" 

"Drive !" — it became the soul of his movements. 
Soon he writes: "It is said that the Roman legions 
could march twenty-four miles a day; we cover thirty." 

Genius at high speed, we say of him. Even his 
descriptions of his campaigns reflect the characteristic: 
"My columns are moving; the enemy is retreating; I 
hope I shall catch him." "The army is on the march; 
we leap into the boats." And when dying, "Steingel! 
Desaix ! Massena ! Ah, ours is the victory ! go, haste, 
charge — they are ours !" 

Chiefly we bow our head over the Exile's wish 
expressed for his body: "I wish my ashes to rest by 
the Seine, in the midst of the people of France whom I 
have loved so dearly." 

And there within the crypt, the standards of the 
nations do not seem out of place, nor our tears, as we 
weep for the fallen Emperor. 



54 MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 

XIII. 

The Miracle. 

The world the greatness of her soul surprises: 
Her heroes fall? — France rises! 

We must distinguish between Napoleon and France 
as we follow the history of her wars. In this we are 
guided by none so unerringly as by her illustrious writers. 
Always the wonderful insight of her analysts surprises 
and delights us. Possibly no recent literary authority has 
given us greater pleasure in this respect than Victor 
Giraud whose essays in La Revue des Deux Mondes 
have an inexpressible charm that cannot be translated. 
His Civilisation Frangaise, which appeared in 1917 was 
awarded the Prix d' eloquence by the French Academy. 
It is dedicated to Pierre Masson, Professor of the 
University of Freiburg, a lieutenant of the infantry, who 
fell April 16, 1916, in defense of the soil of Lorraine and 
French civilization. H; P. Thieme and W. A. McLaughlin 
of the University of Michigan have rendered* a very 
excellent translation of this essay along with Giraud's 
•essay, The French Miracle, which is no whit behind his 
essay on French Civilisation, in its literary excellence 
and its timeliness. Every American should possess a 
copy of this translation. The heart of France, if not of 



MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 55 

a thousand essays of the great writers of France, is 
expressed in the fortunate and happy contribution of 
Professor Giraud to French Hterature. 

Following the story of Napoleon, a page from Giraud's 
French Civilization is most appropriate. 

"France instinctively, no doubt, since she was the 
daughter of Gaul, but from necessity, also, has been a 
great military nation. She has known and practised 
all kinds of warfare. But it is to be noticed that almost 
all the wars that France has provoked or sustained 
were really defensive wars, 

"When France practised with some degree of intem- 
perance *sacred selfishness,' she had difficulty in con- 
tinuing in that direction. The traditional policy of 
France has ever been, not to permit any one power to 
acquire the hegemony of Europe, and thus to bring 
beneath its despotic yoke the weaker states. 

"France was not satisfied with assuring to other 
peoples the right to existence; with her blood and 
treasure she helped several nationalities in their efforts 
to establish themselves. The unification of Italy is her 
work. What material profit did we gain from our inter- 
vention in the American war of Independence and the 
war of the Greek Independence? 

"France, more than any other nation, is capable of 
abandoning all self-interest, of consecrating herself to 
the interests of others, and as soon as the great ideals 



56 MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 

of justice and humanity are at stake, no one has ever 
appealed in vain to her generosity." 



XIV. 

The Place of France in Science, Literature and Art. 

To France we come without a doubt 
To light the fires that ne'er will out. 

No Mrord is excessive in Giraud's foregoing state- 
ment. The literature of every nation abounds in the 
praise of the justice and humanity of the French nation. 

If it be in the realm of political economy, v^e find 
Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill writing in their 
praise. If Adam Smith, the reputed founder of politi- 
cal economy is speaking of Turgot, the French states- 
man and economist of the eighteenth century, his sole 
criticism is, that Turgot's ideals and devotion are too 
high. David Hume, the historian, and possibly the 
real founder of modern political economy, w^rites the 
same caution. 

If it be the military expert. Captain Gronow of Napo- 
leon's day cannot withhold his admiration for the hu- 
manity of France toward her soldiers. Thus he says : 

"On entering a French camp you saw as much order 



MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 57 

as in the best regulated towns. Streets were formed 
with squares ; places of amusement were planned, and 
large trenches were dug in every direction, to drain the 
ground thoroughly. Gendarmes kept strict watch over 
the soldiers, a fire-brigade was always in readiness, 
and everything was arranged methodically. The dress 
of the French soldier was not only loose and comfort- 
able, but easily cleaned, and his knapsack was remark- 
able for its convenience. A cantiniere was attached to 
the camp, and supplied both officers and men." 

A book Could very readily be filled of the world's 
tributesto France in a thousand particulars that endear 
her'to-tke?ifatnily of nations. No writer could more 
deserve' thfeotl^orld's gratitude than he who should take 
upon 'himselffthe compilation of such a book. It should 
merit the widest sale, and be productive of unlimited 
good. ■ ;:i ■■■■ji-v-f- 

• There is^dnfiendless outpouring stream of Memoires, 
Journals, "Letters, Notes, Essays, Biographies, His- 
tories andiiRomances — all contributing to the proof of 
the progress of Humanism in France. 

It is her sons who, by their pens, have been most 
forward in scaling the heights of noble Friendship, 
without which there can be no Humanity. 

'Tn human tenderness," writes Balzac, "as in Alpine 
scenery, there is ever a sovereign summit, immaculate, 
eternal, austere. . Below such an altitude lie flowery 
spots, valleys beautified with changeful seasons, and 



58 MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 

these may be compared to the passing joys of love and 
devotion. But that Jungfrau towering above symbol- 
izes the link, the completion of love. Friendship in- 
capafble of change is the aliment of those riches on a 
lower level, riches all the more precious because they 
are certain to be renewed. Thus is this love of mine 
based upon, vivified by the faithful friendship of ten 
years." 

Guizot's word, more general in its bearing, is to 
the same effect. He writes: 

"In the most diverse types of literature, the loftiest 
masterpieces of French literature are precisely those 
which have appealed by their human qualities to the 
tender and grateful admiration of their contemporaries 
and of posterity. Humanity in every meaning of the 
word is indeed the characteristic of a literature which 
ten centuries of uninterrupted productivity have not 
exhausted. French literature is human because it 
studies man; it is human because it incessantly pro- 
vokes and places in the foreground the most important 
questions which interest man; his happiness, his con- 
duct, his destiny; and it is human because it is nour- 
ished, as it were, *on the milk of human kindness.* " 

Let us be rid of the idea that the sons of France have 
beggared their souls to succeed in literature. Down 
in the street, where men elbow always and everywhere 
in primitive fashion, this may be so. And in truth in 
Fj-ench literature this propensity has been focused and 



MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 59 

dissected. But Victor Hugo has stated the case for 
the leaders of France. 

"Success,", is Victor Hugo's version, "is a very 
hideous thing, and its resemblance with merit deceives 
men. For the herd, success has nearly the same pro- 
file as supremacy. Success, that Menaechmus of talent, 
has a dupe in history, and Tacitus as Juvenal alone 
grumble at it. In our days an almost official philos- 
ophy wears the livery of success, and waits in the ante- 
room. Succeed, that is the theory, for prosperity pre- 
supposes capacity. Win in the lottery and you are 
a clever man, for he who triumphs is revered. All you 
want is to be born under a fortunate star. Have luck 
and you will have the rest, be fortunate and you will be 
thought a great man. Gilding is gold. The mob is as 
old as Narcissus, adoring itself and applauding the 
mob." 

But with our eyes off the mob, the key-note of the 
writers of France who are given to lay bare her soul, is 
progression. 

France has enjoyed a thousand years of literature, 
the fruits of which are in proof of this progression. 

If we begin in the dawn of this literature, with the 
Chansons — say of Roland — we soon note that there is 
no middle class, but just nobles and peasants. Al- 
ways a realist, however romantic, the French poet in 
his chansons is true to color. But advance to the era 
of the Romances, so-called, of a later century, and the 



60 MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 

sterner j coarser fibre of early Roman character shows 
conversion into the gentle, courteous, essentially relig- 
ious character of the Frenchman. The classes of 
society are now greatly diversified. Follow the French 
legend of the Holy Graal, — which comprises more than 
fifty thousand verses ! — for witness of the proof of the 
statement. 

Whence came Chaucer and Shakespeare but to 
France, for their fountains of fancy ? And has not other 
than the English genius borrowed at these fountains? 

If you ask, Whence the secret of these French 
sources of imagery, you will find them chiefly in the 
fact, perhaps, that France, being more ruthlessly and 
continuously overrun by the Romans, the Vandals, the 
Norsemen and Huns, experienced the ravages of imag- 
inative terrors in addition, from which relief was found 
in poetic expression. 

France, in her children, was seeking beauty for ashes, 
in this literature. 

And so came creative genius from other lands to 
assimilate this beauty. 

The sociability, humor and delight of the French 
people to narrate events had given the world a genre 
of literature all its own. Joinville, Froissart, Du Bel- 
lay, Montaigne, de Thou, D'Aubigne and Marguerite 
de Valois, in these Memoires, had greatly contributed 
to the vivacity and importance of the French literature 
of the sixteenth century. 



MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 61 

The name of a single institution of France is proof 
of the early solidarity of the striving genius of expres- 
sion in France. In Paris, in 1250, Robert de Sorbonne 
— born of a little village near Rheims — founded the 
now famous school that bears his name. 

Why is the French tongue so signally beautiful and 
expressive? It is because Rabelais, Amyot, and Mon- 
taigne were in the forefront, as the creators of beauti- 
ful language in the sixteenth century; at the touch of 
their genius the betrothal and perfect union of the 
French with the classic expression was signalized. 

What names soon greet us in French literature ! 

Descartes, Victor Cousin, Auguste Comte, Joubert, 
Taine and Renan of the philosophers. 

Francois Guizot, the founder of political and social 
history in France ; Thierry, Michelet, de Tocqueville. 

In the natural sciences, Palissy and de Serres, 
French fruits of the Renaissance. 

In poetry, early, d'Aubigne and du Bartas. 

Soon the volume transcends our pages. Why? 

The Renaissance. 

The Renaissance, if cradled in Italy, occasioned in no 
country so tremendous and forward moving a change 
as in France. In no country was the humanism of the 
classics more notably espoused ; in no country did the 
aspiration of the ancients seem so at one with the striv- 
ings of the people at home. Admiration for the mas- 
terpieces of the olden civilization was instinctive, 



(il MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 

enthusiastic and far-reaching. Literature, science, 
government, art were prodigiously affected. 

In Francois Rabelais, of the Franciscan, and later of 
the Benedictine order, France produced possibly the 
most passionate interpreter of the spirit of the Renais- 
sance. Indefatigable as a student, acquainted with 
the Greek, Hebrew, Italian and Arabic tongues, Rabe- 
lais gained the power of understanding the common 
aspirations of mankind; while his many-sided talents 
of humor, satire and audacious art made him seem the 
very incarnation of the soul of the Renaissance. 

Madame de Stael, Villemain, Vinet, Renan, Saint- 
Beuve, Taine, Brunetiere of the Critics : 

Corneille, Racine, Voltaire of the drama, followed 
by de Vigny, de Muset, Alexander Dumas pere, Augier, 
Sardou of the modern drama, which includes also 
Maurice Maeterlinck, who, though born in Belgium, 
is properly classed with the P>ench writers, since he 
lived in Paris. 

Lamartine, Victor Hugo, de Musset, de Vigny, and 
Theophile Gautier of the Romanticists ; Nodier, Beran- 
ger and Courier of the modern humorists and satirists ; 
Aurore Dupin (George Sand), Dumas pere, Feuillet, 
Jules Verne, Anatole France, and Lemaitre of the 
modern novel; Balzac, Stendhal, Flaubert, the Gon- 
courts, Daudet, of the realistic novel; Zola, Guy de 
Maupassant and Bourget of the naturalistic novel. 

This is France in literature. 



MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 63 

Everywhere fidelity to the truth, as progressively 
lived. 

And so Victor Hugo's entreaty to risk reputation 
for the truth : 

"Never let us fear robbers and murderers. These 
are external and small dangers; let us fear ourselves; 
prejudices are the real robbers, vices the true mur- 
derers. The real dangers are within ourselves. Let 
us not trouble about what threatens our head or purse, 
and think only of what troubles our soul." 

And Montaigne had shown the way, standing ready 
to speak the truth, if "flayed by every hand, a Ghibel- 
line to the Guelfs, a Guelf to the Ghibellines." With 
Louis Madelin, the historian, saying tersely, "I have 
made up my mind to that." 

The place of France, then, in this field, in a word? 

Always a dominating influence, an unflagging devo- 
tion in the literature and humanism of every age. 
Always a generosity of moral and social help. Always 
a bequeathment of noble sentiments and ideals. Al- 
ways a guardianship of wisdom and experience. Never 
any cessation in her battle for lofty ideas. Never any 
recession from the spirit of sacrifice for the triumph of 
justice and liberty. Never a France without her 
Crusader. 

Always we enter France for a true expression of life. 
"Are you not at one with me," asked d'Aurevilly, "on 
the subject of Art — namely, that, after all. Art is al- 



64 MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 

ways less interesting than Life, which is the Art of 
God?" . 1 

In her wars it has been the same. 

"The real French wars, in truth," writes Victor 
Giraud today, are more or less Crusades," and this 
is manifest at the present moment. And it was ever so. 
''The Volunteers of 1792 believed with touching sincer- 
ity that they were the missionaries of liberty in the 
world. Did not the Legislative Assembly declare that 
'France was not undertaking the war of conquest,' and 
later on, after Jemmapes what did the Convention 
say? 'The National Convention declares in the name 
of the French nation that it will bring aid and brother- 
hood to all the peoples who wish to recover their lib- 
erty.' They speak of liberty instead of speaking of the 
'tomb of Christ' — the spirit, however, has not changed 
at all." 

"It was in France that the Crusades had their 
origin; it was a French monk, it was a French Pope 
who preached the first Crusade; it was a French king 
who led the last two and they were Frenchmen who 
participated most generously in them." All this Victor 
Giraud has said truly. 




BEAUVAIS CATHEDRAL 



66 MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 

XV. 
Whence the Supersense of Place Possessed of France? 

There is, in France, a supersense of place: — 
Whence? — "Whence but in the Gospel's grace?" 

And he might have said, France has felt the crusad- 
ing power of the missionaries of the Church, and by 
this has protected herself, as she has essayed the aid 
and brotherhood of all peoples in need of her arm. 

If one takes an express train from Bordeaux to Paris 
through Potiers and Tours, he is following in the wake 
of the route the Moslems were pursuing when, in the 
name of God, Charles Martel met them in 732. And 
after Martel came missionaries, who aided "the Ham- 
merer," to breast the invasion of the Germans from the 
east of the Rhine. 

Has not France always felt the shock of some on- 
rushing aid, mysterious and marvelous, when she has 
battled in defense of her children, for the cause of the 
world? ' 

Let Giraud tell the story of the suspense of Paris 
in 1914, as the foe swept nearer her suburbs : 

"Paris was waiting. For what? She did not know. 
She knew one thing, namely, that she would be de- 
fended to the last." 



MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 67 

"One morning she learned that the German danger was 
passing away, and that just as fifteen hundred years 
before the barbaric hoards for no apparent reason were 
turning away from the capital and marching to the 
fatal meeting on the fields around Chalons, Paris was 
saved. Paris understood the mystery of her deliver- 
ance no more than she had that of fifteen centuries 
before. I dare say that this mystery is today more 
incomprehensible than was that of fifteen hundred 
years ago. For it would be impossible to compare 
even very superficially the Paris of the days of Atilla 
with the Paris of our day." 

Come, let us dwell on two scenes that separate four 
generations of Frenchmen, and yet typify the spirit 
of ten centuries of the struggle of France against odds, 
to fulfil her destiny. 

The first scene brings us in the presence of the mag- 
nificent spirit out of which great French armies have 
been moulded: 

''Legislators," strikes in the petition of the 20th 
June, 1792, "do not let this language astonish you. 
We do not belong to any party; we do not wish to 
adopt anything other than what shall be in accord with 
the Constitution. Did the enemies of the fatherland 
imagine that the men of the 14th of July are asleep? 
If they had that appearance their awakening is terrible : 
they have lost none of their energy. The immortal 
Declaration of the Rights of Man is too profoundly 



68 MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 

graven upon their hearts. That precious boon, that 
boon of all the nations, will be defended by them and 
nothing will be capable of depriving them of it. It 
is time, gentlemen, to put into execution that article 
2 of the Rights of Man. Follow the example of the 
Ciceros and Demosthenes and unveil in open senate 
the perfidious machinations of the Catalines. You 
have men animated by the sacred fire of patriotism : 
let them speak, and we will act." 

The second scene is painted by Victor Giraud, in an 
apostrophe to the sons of France who have laid down 
their lives, and not in vain, as "animated by the sacred 
fire of patriotism." 

"Oh, you young men, lying in the plains of the 
Marne, of Alsace, or of Flanders, you have given your 
lives heroically for that great work of reparation, to 
create a larger France, a France respected by the world 
and in perfect unity in a purified Europe where peace 
reigns. This spectacle which you will not see we want 
to last in the world for ages. We would not be worthy 
of you, if hereafter by our own hand we tear ourselves 
assunder. We have fully realized the austere lesson 
which you have taught us, for you died in brotherly 
love. We shall continue, we shall complete your 
work; If in spite of grief, or misery and ruin wg are 
proud to have just lived through it is because we are 
certain that France in victory will be able to prolong 
the miracle of France." 




JOAN OF ARC. 



70 MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 

There is a religious character to these words that is 
beautiful, exalted, wonderful. God's influence breathes 
in the passage. 

Victor Hugo's words in the scene of the dying Re- 
publican, in Les Miserables are recalled : 

"Oh you who are ! Ecclesiastes calls you Omnipo- 
tence; the Maccabees call you Creator; the Epistle to 
the Ephesians calls you Liberty; Baruch calls you 
Immensity; the Psalms call you Wisdom and Truth; 
St. John calls you Light; the Book of Kings calls you 
Lord; Exodus calls you Providence; Leviticus, Holi- 
ness; Esdras, Justice; Creation calls you God; man 
calls you the Father; but Solomon calls you Mercy, 
and that is the fairest of all your names." 

Here again Humanism — for that is the meaning of 
this passage in Les Miserables — is attributed to the 
Divine influence. 

We are very close to the full heart of France now. 

It is as though France, taught by each political 
earthquake to throw her all into the balance, again 
and again, has been able, by her devotion to liberty, 
and by the sacrifice of her sons, only in the name of 
God, and through his mercy to infuse her enthusiasm 
for the just cause in the breasts of all liberty loving 
people. 

This is in the thought of Victor Giraud, as once 
more see: 

"Suddenly," writes Victor Giraud, "like a thunderbolt 



MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 71 

the war burst forth. And immediately a new France ap- 
peared: a France united, proud without bravado, calm 
and serious, the very one we had built up in our dreams 
and which we had almost despaired of ever seeing with 
our mortal eyes ; a France which accepted without a mur- 
mur her fate as though for forty years she had not been 
dreading this tragic day and had been preparing for it in 
silence. In the twinkhng of an eye, all the pettiness of 
days gone by was forgotten and sunk deep in the past. In 
the twinkling of an eye a sacred union of minds and wills 
and hearts was established, a sort of crystallization of 
the soul of France — a thing which goes beyond our 
rational faculties. In all that I see a first French 
miracle." 

Professor Giraud is not peculiar in these words. You 
will find them on the lips of the greatest strategist in 
the history o£ war. Napoleon Bonaparte, mapping out 
with General Bertrand, at St. Helena, the battles of the 
past, comes at length to state his belief that human ends 
cannot well be shaped without faith in God. To his mind, 
he said, the Christ of the Gospel, was God. If my reader 
will substitute the thought of God in the place of Christ 
— if this can be done in following Napoleon's language — 
he will find himself face to face with one of deepest and 
most far-reaching confessions of faith in the Infinite 
that is recorded in human words. I am quoting the 
words in this place, not for theological purposes, which 
after all are secondary, but for the purpose of under- 



n MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 

standing both Napoleon's and Victor Giraud's use of the 
term "miracle," I believe that we are nearer the heart of 
France, in following the words of these sons of France, 
as they attribute their faith to religious influences, than 
perhaps we have been before. Certainly the morale of 
religion — or rather the morale of victorious hosts 
through the consciousness of a righteous cause, in a day 
of national extremity, is here given notable asknowledg- 
ment. Napoleon says; 

"The nature of Christ's existence is mysterious, I 
admit; but mystery meets the wants of man — ^reject it, 
and the world is an inexplicable riddle — ^believe it, and 
the history of our race is explained." 

"You cannot reproach the Christians with the subtleties 
and artifices of those idealists who think to solve pro- 
found problems by their empty dissertations. Fools! 
their efforts are those of the infant who tries to touch 
the sky, or cries to have the moon for his plaything." 

"The Gospel possesses a secret of indescribable efficacy, 
a warmth which influences the understanding and 
softens the heart. The Gospel is more than a book; it 
is a living thing, active powerful, overcoming every 
obstacle in its way." 

"Christ never hesitates, never varies his instruction, 
and the least of his sayings is stamped with a simplicity 
and a depth which captivates the ignorant and the 
learned, if they give it their attention." 

"Nowhere is to be found such a series of beautiful 



74 MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 

thoughts, fine moral maxims, following one another like 
ranks of a celestial army, and producing upon the soul 
the same emotion as is felt in contemplating the infinite 
extent of the resplendent heavens on a fine summer 
night." 

"One can never go astray w^ith this book for his guide." 
"Once master of our mind, the Gospel is a faithful 
friend." 

"Do your children, General Bertr and, love you ?" 
"Christ speaks, and at once generatioils become his by 
stricter, closer ties than those of blood ; jy the most 
sacred, most indissoluble of unions. He lights up the 
flame of a love which consumes self-love, which prevails 
over every other love." 

"This wonderful power of his will." 
"Christ's greatest miracle undoubtedly is the reign of 
charity." 

"He alone succeeded in lifting the heart of man." 
"All who sincerely believe in Christ taste this wonder- 
ful, supernatural exalted love, which is beyond the power 
of reason, above the ability of man ; a sacred fire brought 
down to earth by this new Prometheus, and of which 
Time, the great destroyer can neither exhaust the force 
nor limit the duration. The more I think of this, I 
admire it the more." 

"I have inspired multitudes with such affection for 
me that they would die for me . . . What a wide 
abyss between my deep misery now that I am forgotten, 



MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 75 

and die before my time, and the eternal kingdom of 
Christ!" 

''The more I think, it convinces me absolutely of the 
divinity of Christ. Christ is God." 



XVI. 



The Supreme Sacrifice 

*I swear," he said, "most happy I, 
To die, my France to glorify." 



Is there a social vision in France? "I suspect," says 
Victor Hugo, of the seer, "he obtains his manner of 
judging things from the Gospels." 

France believes this. 

She beheves that the miracle can be accomplished. 
Society can be persuaded to accept its full responsibility. 

She believes it, because her sons, often from the ranks 
of the unprivileged, are performing a full man's task in 
their defense of society. 

"He who goes hungry without complaining," writes 
Pierre Hamp, "who walks with bloody feet, only fires 
after taking aim, and only dies if necessary, is the soldier 
who has done his job perfectly." 

Two soldiers have been rescued along the firing-line. 

"The sun is glorious, is it not?" asks the Frenchman. 



76 MY TRIBUTE TO PRANCE 

"It is glorious," echoes the American boy of nineteen, 
who has the thrust of the bayonet in his breast, and has 
been overcome with gas, and is convalescent on a glad 
June day below Soissons. 

Why 'do I read in the American lad's letter to his 
father, that he is anxious to return to the battle-front? 

Why do the boy's eyes brighten, as he meets those of 
the Frenchman? 

Why is every American proud to fig'ht at the side of 
a Frenchman? 

Why is there the sense that the Frenchman] is always 
surpassing himself in the battle? 

The answer is ready on the lips of the Frenchman's 
brother: 

"The Frenchman never fights so well as when 'he feels 
that his cause surpasses him and that his material interest 
is not alone at stake. To be sure, he loves his own 
country and in order to defend 'his native soil he consents 
to the heaviest and most bloody sacrifices ; but he is 
happy in the thought that these sacrifices are of profit 
to others than himself and his countrymen. When these 
sacrifices are demanded of him not only for his country 
but foi^ the triumph of one of those great and generous 
ideas, humanity, religion, justice, civilization, liberty, 
which raise man above himself and merge with his 
ephemeral self something of the eternal laws, then he 
ofifers his life with that sort of mystic ardor which makes 
him so terrible on the fields of 'battle," Again it is Giraud 




JOAN OF ARC— Jacques Wagrez. 




VILLENEUVE 



MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 79 

who has painted the great French characteristic so truly. 

Not empty words, these, for their author is able to 
lay before us the one unanswerable and eternal witness 
of the love that burns in the breast of the soldier of 
France for his country. 

October 15th, 1914, at Vermelles, a letter was found 
on the person of the French Lieutenant Jean Chatany, 
the body lying lifeless. The letter was addressed to the 
wife of the dead soldier. It reads: 

My Dear: 

"I am writing this chance letter, because you can 
never tell. If it reaches you, it will be because France 
will have needed me to the very end. I swear, I shall 
die happy, if I must give up my life for her. 

My only worry is the hard situation in which you 
and the children will be left. . . . You will kiss the 
dear little ones for their father. You will tell them that 
he has gone on a long, long journey still loving them, 
and thinking of them and protecting them from afar. 
I should like to have Cotte at least remember me, and 
there will be a little baby, which I have never seen. If 
it is a boy, my wish is that he become a doctor ; unless, 
however, after this war France still needs officers. You 
will tell him when he has reached the age of understand- 
ing that his father gave up his life for a great ideal, 
that of our country, reconstituted and strong. 

I think I have said what is most important. Fare- 



80 MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 

well, my dear, my love. Promise me, that you will 
console father and mother, and tell the little girls that 
their father, however far away he may be, will never 
cease to watch over them and love them. We shall 
meet again some day, united once more, I hope, with 
Him who guides our lives and has given me near you 
and through you such happiness. Poor dear one, I 
have not had time to dwell long upon our love, which 
nevertheless is so great and strong. Farewell till we 
meet again, the great, the real meeting. Be strong. 

Your John. 



MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE ai 

XVII. 

The Religion of Work. 

Once more, what is Work? — answer well, 
And I, what the faith of France is, will tell. 

One final tribute remains to be laid on the altar of 
our affection for France. 

I have spoken of the Christian faith of France. A 
great English author, speaking of Chateaubriand, sums 
up the case for this faith : 

"I could not desire a stronger proof of the power of 
literature in France," writes Henry Lytton Bulwer in 
1836, ''than that which is to be found in the Genie du 
Christianisme. 

''What is that eloquent work? — a pleading before the 
Academy in favor of the gospel." 

If we look closely into this plea of Chateaubriand's, 
it is Napoleon's conviction all over again, in substance. 
Thus a single sentence: "It is not in order, to prove 
that Christianity is excellent because it came from God, 
but that it came from God because it is excellent." 

What Bulwer says of the Gospel, through Chateau- 
briand, we have learned to say of the Prophets, and of 
the Hebrew faith, through our association together in 
the prosecution of the war. Our religion is not so far 



82 MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 

now from being one. By its work after all religion is 
known. And so, — 

There is, so to speak, a third religion in France, if 
not everywhere. Possibly a faith that springs from the 
religion of the Bible. 

It is the religion of Work. 
You will read the articles of this faith everywhere in 
French literature. 

Roughly, the faith is stated — and, with this religion, 
when stated, proved — as follows : 

Only with supreme effort can the artist expect to 
paint the smile, for the smile is harder to paint than 
tears. 

Only by labor renewed can youth be portrayed, for 
the canvas yields the image of age less reluctantly than 
the image of youth. 

Not till you know how to paint a lemon on a Japa- 
nese plate, have you toiled with your art. 

Genius — it is as a great American has said, the 
capacity of taking infinite pains. 

You are an artist, and have worked with the face ; 
have you worked for the hand? — the hand is as reveal- 
ing as the face. 

There is a long road of failure before you can do 
well. It is the story of science and art. It is the story 
of Man. 

Glory? — it, too, is the fruit of hard work. 




}i/'M^M 



84 MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 

To the worker who thinks the beautiful is every- 
where. 

And if you work, nothing is ahogether ugly. 

And if you do not work, you are vulgar. 
7' You can paint woman but not man, you say: the 
reason is plain ; woman is easier to paint than man. 

Without work your brush may be violent, but vigor- 
ous never. 

You idle at your task; your painting cracks in the 
sun. 

But you must not only work, you must have faith, to 
paint a religious picture. 

When you have succeeded, manage to live out of 
doors more ; out of doors you are close to nature ; 
without nature you will become wearisome in your art, 
your oratory and your business; and if you wish to be 
a colorist, if you would keep the freshness of life, you 
must be steeped in the seashore. 

You lag in your efforts, art has died in you — you 
turn only to annals, to the deeds of others. 

You surround yourself with orientalisms, you give 
yourself to oriental impressionism : — I know you ; the 
sentiments of love are your moving passion, for all is 
love in oriental art. 

Who works to achieve his ideals is no peasant; he 
glances often at the sky. 

After long labor you find yourself; labor yet harder, 
you learn to express yourself. 



MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 85 

Passionate love of art? — it is the matter of joyous 
industry. 

Art and industry are the fairest flowers in the land. 

Jacques Amyot toiling into the night by the light of 
burning coal, gladdened by a loaf of bread once a week 
from his mother through boatmen on the Seine ; Pierre 
de Ronsard on his loss of the sense of hearing, giving 
himself to the rejuvenation of old words and the crea- 
tion of new words, and to such mastery of form and 
style, that he became the founder of modern French 
poetry; Francois de Malhei^be — "tyrant," so-called, "of 
words and syllables" — devoting his life to disciplining 
the French language to the perfection of its purity; 
Boileau addressing himself to the full possibilities of 
satire, as affecting the French mind. Victor Hugo, 
rising at three o'clock in the m'orning and working till 
noon. 

This capacity of the Frenchman to throw himself 
into his labor is stated, now and again, as the great 
explanation of this marvelous nation. 

It does indeed explain much of the wonders which 
France has accomplished. 

'T see France living through these bitter years," 
writes Elizabeth Shepley Sergeant," on the strength of 
her ancient everyday virtues. Most of all, by force of 
what has been called her 'professional conscience,' that 
love of work for work's sake, that passion for technical 
perfection, that scrupulous patience in carrying things 



86 MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 

through, which, whether it takes the form of good 
housekeeping, tilling a field, writing a verse, making an 
artificial flower, or firing a big gun, is, I long ago came 
to believe, the deepest source of the French national 
energy." 

"Work," exclaims Balzac, **it is this force that sub- 
dues the claims of a fiery nature. Success, what is it, 
after all, but a matter of hard work." 

Admitting all that can be said of this force, I am 
wondering whether some future day we shall not be 
laying a further tribute at the feet of France: — her dis- 
covery, through the great war, the means of proving 
ta the satisfaction of every son and daughter within the 
Republic, that it was God who gave France, and her 
Allies, this work to do. 

As an American, joining hands across the sea with our 
brothers in the conflict, I hear the words of Francois 
Guizot, through the years, words which were spoken in 
the praise of the work of Washington; and I am 
gladdened that the great Guizot presages, perhaps, the 
outcome of the present war, in that he is moved to praise 
the Supreme Being, as the Giver to Mankind of the work 
that true men are qualified to do. 

Guizot ends his book with the conviction: 

"Government will be, always and everyw'here, the 
greatest exercise of the faculties of man. In men who 
are worthy of this destiny, all weariness, all sadness of 
spirit, however it might be permitted in others, is weak- 



MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 87 

ness. Their vocation is labor. Their reward is, indeed, 
the success of their efforts, but still only in labor. Very 
often they die, bent under the burden, before the day of 
recompense arrives. Washington lived to receive it. He 
deserved to enjoy both success and repose. Of all great 
men, he was the most virtuous and the most fortunate. 
In this world, God has no higher favors to bestow." 

It is so. 

Let us end our book in the majesty of the thought. 



ANNOUNCEMENT 

THE PUBUSHER OF 

My Tribute to France 

Takes pleasure in announcing the fol- 
lowing volumes which are to appear 
from the pen of Dr. Du Bois H, Loux. 

/. France, the France I Love 

(Present volume.) Introduction by Dr. Frank. 
Crane. Maps by Townsend Mac Coun, A.M. 

//. Social Genius and Intimate Home- 
Life of France 

maps by Townsend Mac Coun. Engraved by 
the L. L. Poates Co. 

///. War Atlas 

40 battle-fronts; 5 colors each. Political history 
of France. Profusely illustrated with valuable 
old prints and interesting facts about our Allies 
and our Crusader Boys. 

IV. Paris by Day and by Night 

Also illumined by rare prints. 

V. The France of Victor Hugo 

With portraits and illustrations. 

In addition to this series I am asking Dr. Loux to 
prepare tributes to the United Kingdom, Italy, Belgium, 
Greece, Japan and other of our Allied Peoples. 

A low price for each volume — $1.50. 

PAULINE L. DIVER, Publisher 

NEW YORK, U. S. A. 



Societe Academique D'Histoire 

Internationale, France 

PAULINE L. DIVER 

memhre actif 



Dr. Loux wishes me to tell how the honor came to me 
of being enrolled in the Societe Academique D'Histoire 
Internationale, France. It is a short story. I deter- 
mined to merit the honor. That meant study. Not 
hard or exhaustive study, but just delightful study. 
Out of that study, I found myself. I knew what my 
purpose for life was to be. I could do for others what 
had been done for me. I could give to the Allied 
World the literature of victory and so my "Tribute to 
France" came to be. France is the great land of vic- 
tory. It is her destiny to be the Theater of Liberty, 
on which the Great Allied Victory is to be staged. 

I need not say more. I am proud, of course, of the 
recognition received from the Societe Academique, I 
shall be prouder to help the young people of this and 
other allied countries to achieve greater honors. This 
is the life work I have planned. I cannot say that is 
the purpose of my book, for my "My Tribute to France" 
is not a purpose but a recognition. I love France with 
a great, sacred, constant love. And, as an exemplar 
for our American Youth I am trying, in my book, to 
hold up the consecration of the people of France to the 
cause of truth and humanity. May I say one word 
more? Our esteemed friend, co-worker and author, 
Mr. Townsend Mac Coun has also been honored with 
membership in the Societe Academique D'Histoire 
Internationale. 



ANNOUNCEMENT 



MY TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 

HISTORY OF FRANCE 

TOLD IN COLOR— IN MAPS 

By Townsend Mac Coun, A. M. 

The History of France from 430 A. D. accompanied 
with 80 maps printed *in four colors, including 40 maps 
from the Battle-fronts. Engraved by House of Poates. 

^ No library, private or public can be complete 
v^.'thout this book. For School, Academy and 
College students the book exceedingly simplifies 
the study of history and brings France vividly 
before the mind. 

^ "The accurate work of a scholarly historian 
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ANNOUNCEMENT 

THE PUBLISHER OF 

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Will appreciate for future volumes, 
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graphs of scenes in France. Ac- 
knowledgment will be given of the 
receipt of these pictures. Extracts 
from Diaries of soldiers and sailors 
also welcomed. :-: :-: :-: :-: 



PAULINE L. DIVER, Publisher 

NEW YORK, U. S. A. 



"The Allied World is strong in the 
magnificence of its truth and unity" 

OPENS DR. DU BOIS H. LOUX IN 

''My Tribute to the 

United Kingdom as the 

Defender of France*' 



The Story Is Great! 

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